We’ll see how I treat it, but I’m pretty stoked about its starting point.
Month: March 2014
Nature is naturally amazing!
These two images (below) I found over at TYWKIWDBI. I could post almost everything I discover at Minnesotastan’s blog. But these two were not to miss.
The first is this one:
As Minnesotastan wrote:
I’ll bet you didn’t see the mantis on the orchid. … Neither did the fly.
The next image is fascinating as well.
It’s a group of ants squirting formic acid into the air after they felt threatened. What an amazing group protection plan.
Read more about it here.
Louis CK on SNL …
I got a good laugh or two out of this one. Text of his discussion of religion (around 4:08) below the fold.
LOVE THIS! Indoor Clouds created by Berndnaut Smilde
Taco Bell hires a bunch of Ronald McDonald’s to promote their breakfast menu
And after all that effort, I still won’t eat at Taco Bell.
Fathers pledge devotion to their daughters in unsettling ceremony? Some trends deserve all the criticism possible
From this Design Trend article (emphasis on poorly written sentence mine):
A new father-daughter chastity phenomenon is leeching across the United States.
“Purity balls” are similar to weddings, except the father marries his twelve-year-old daughter. The goal is to maintain the girl’s virginity until marriage.
During the ceremony, the fathers present their daughters with purity rings, and the duo become boyfriend and girlfriend, the Daily Mail reported.
“You keep this on your finger and as of this point you are married to the Lord and your father is your boyfriend,” the father says as he hands his daughter the ring.
The girls then “silently commit to live pure lives before God through the symbol of laying down a white rose at the cross, before engaging in a wedding-type dance with their father.”
Having sex with, kissing or touching a man (other than their fathers) before marriage is strictly prohibited.
Pay all the attention to the woman in front of the curtain
The last two weeks have been tough. We’ve been incredibly busy, which is a good thing. But it’s taxing.
There’s no better person to have by my side than Tina. I know, I write about her a lot.
She is my everything.
Sometimes I wonder if I work with her to build our business because I am passionate about my art, or passionate about keeping her by my side no matter what.
I love what I do, but I love what I do more because Tina is with me.
We had a 14-hour day on Wednesday, and at the end of the day we were photographing an award ceremony. Tina doesn’t shoot for those kinds of things. She can kill it with a room of people getting posed, smily shots. But her forte isn’t rifling through a verity of lighting situations and lens choices to cover the range of needs in a range of scenarios.
It was the 10th hour of a long two days, and she was sitting in another room waiting for me to shoot.
“You could grab a cab home,” I told her. “There’s no reason for you to stay.”
“No, I’m staying. I want to be here with you.”
She melts my heart and she doesn’t even know it.
The morning had started with a bang. Both days, we started with setting up location-based photo studio to shoot head shots of anyone in the company who needed one. Tuesday was a bit slow. We did about 20 shots over 3 hours. No big deal.
On Wednesday, we were setting up thinking that it would be as slow as the day before. At 10:40, a woman walked over before our lights were setup. The stands were out. My camera was still in my bag.
“Are you guys setup for head shots yet?” She barked from about 10 yards away.
“Um,” I looked around. The backdrop wasn’t even up. “No, not quite yet.”
“Lauren said you were going to be setup by 10:45. I have appointments (she tapped her watch), and I need to get my shot and go.”
“I thought we started at 11,” I asked. Tina confirmed that the woman was right. We were to be setup in 5 minutes.
Then the woman said, “And another thing … and you can keep working while I talk …” I stopped and looked at her. “I need to talk to you about Photoshop.” That brought me to a full stop, and I walked over to stand in front of her to devote my full attention.
“You can’t multitask?” She asks.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“You can talk and keep setting up.”
“You just asked for my attention, and I wanted to give it to you.” I said. “By the way, we do a professional retouch on all the photos we take,” I assured her. We get that question a lot.
“But I need a lot of work,” she assured me, still standing in front of her. “But you should keep working. What are you? A typical man who won’t ask for directions, can’t multitask.”
My face was burning red. “Ma’am, you just asked for my attention on something you found serious. Now you’re offending me.”
“Really? You’re just the typical man. I’m joking with you. You can’t multitask. That’s typical. I’m joking with you. You can’t take a joke either? That’s typical.”
“No, I find it disrespectful,” I said.
Tina couldn’t believe I told her any of that. She didn’t tell me to shush, but Tina has a way of alleviating the tension that can enter a room with the swoosh of her magic wand called charm.
I wanted to tell that jerk to fuck off. She just hovered there, in the way, watching us setup like a vulture waiting for its turn to eat from the carcass.
I wanted to ask her if people stand over her while she’s working and ask her questions. Does she think setting up lights is some menial, mindless task? What I’m doing is going to make her look either really good or really bad.
And if I do it wrong, it can suck.
Instead of saying anything more, I said nothing and continued to work … only a bit slower. I wasn’t going to let her destroy my setup and taint how the photos looked for the rest of the day.
Another group of people were starting to line up behind her. When we finished, Tina asked if she should stand in to make sure the light is good or have the first person get the first shot.
“You stand in, Tina,” I said. I snapped two shots and looked at my monitor to make sure it looked okay. Fortunately it did and I could move forward.
I looked up at the clock on my computer screen. “10:45” it read.
We invited the first woman over, that jerk. I wanted to point out what time it was, but I didn’t. I took a deep breath, and completed her session with professionalism and poise. But I wanted to kick her in the teeth.
Later, Tina and I talked about it, and she applauded me for how I handled the situation. “You told her what you thought. That’s important.”
“Yeah, but if you weren’t there, it was going to go downhill quickly.”
We high-fived that we’re a fucking great team. We rode out that long 14 hours together. We’ll ride out the rest of the jobs together.
Working together, living together, being together is a dream. And I’m living in it.
My take on #Ferris #Bueller at the Museum
Corporate Head shots-a-palooza
Yesterday and today we’re photographing a corporate event at the Ritz Carlton downtown.
Part of the project’s scope is setting up a sort of studio setup to gather head shots. The company we’re working with is an international company, so they have people in as far away as Australia and China.
If we can gather as many head shots shot and edited in the same way, it creates a brand cohesion.
Here’s a couple light tests that Tina and I grabbed featuring the two of us.
Enjoy.
Pootin? I thought you’re a peein’!
The arrested developed side of me gets a little coo coo sometimes.
Our office culture consists of Tina, Talulah, Zoe, and me. So when we hear a reference to Putin one hundred and twelve thousand times a day, you can imagine the silly, 13-year-old jokes that start up.
We joke about anything and everything that is reoccurring. Especially when the traffic reports come on. We have about six different ways we say, “Wolf in”. I have a way of saying “Dan Ryan” that mimics the way the character Marcie in the movie Magnolia says to John C. Reilly’s character in the scene where he finds the body in the closet, “That ain’t mine!”
Tina’s common response to newscasts repeating Putin every 5 minutes is, “If you’re not peein’, you’re pootin’.”
We’re appalled by what’s going on over there, but feel a little like our hands our tied since nobody’s going to listen to Tina and I on foreign affairs. They’re definitely not going to listen to us now that we’re throwing out these awful jokes about it.
🙂
Le Café Wittypoots 